Dazzling
by Year of the dog
Summary: It's odd, his fascination with a girl who in all regards should be as far from him as possible. (Dorian/F!Lavellan friendship)


_Dorian, F!Lavellan friendship fluff bullshit that I really wanted to write. I'm kind of worried I didn't really do him justice, but I suppose time will tell._

* * *

**Dazzling**

She walks into the church with a strange sort of confidence for someone who should be wary of traps.

He takes in the color of her eyes, the paint of her face, and the point of her ears. _An elf_, he immediately realizes and the thought of her being the one Andraste sent is almost as strange and funny as the confident gait in which she entered.

The confidence is replaced by surprise as he addresses her and the fade rift crackles and sparks behind him. It's only when the rift is closed and they've taken a moment to catch their breath that he finally gets to offer a proper greeting.

The elf hesitates slightly (_confidence faltering, caught off guard, a bad trait in someone heralded as a prophet_) and then asks him a question so common of southerners that part of him wonders how someone so silly managed to become touched by the Maker.

oOo

It's odd, the feel of fighting with a group; having someone else block a blow is so strange that it takes him a bit to get used to the rhythm of it. Though the group changes the one leading them never does.

She fumbles her way through forests and caves and mountainsides and half the time he has half a mind to ask Cassandra to act as guide instead. (_Or the dwarf, or the other elf—the mage one not the girl with the atrocious haircut who crinkles her nose every time he comes within spitting distance_.) But she has drive and though her feet slip and she's almost fallen off more ledges than he'd like to count she never once complains.

The girl's almost charming, in a sense. She's witty (when she isn't paying attention) and when he stands close enough, sometimes he can hear her muttering sarcasms under her breath at the rest of their little party's spats.

When he's gotten more comfortable he adds his own observations. She looks at him with wide-eyes and flushed cheeks and he thinks the almost embarrassed look makes her rather adorable. She mutters something offhandedly about the weather and almost walks herself off another cliff. The next time one of the elves sets off their grand enchanter though, she leans slightly towards him and comments just loud enough for him to hear.

oOo

They're so strangely similar.

Neither belong here, in this large stone keep hidden from the world for so long. He's not welcome by the populous. _Tevinter scum_, they sneer behind hands and books and fans. It's not a bother, not really. The people in charge, the people who matter, allow him free reign and to sit at the same table and some have even taken to calling him friend (however hollow the word actually rings). But even so, he's out of place and it doesn't take the keen eye of their Spymaster to recognize it.

Her seclusion rings differently, but it's still there under the pleasantries and throng of followers. She doesn't know what to do with herself in the walls of a stronghold. It's apparent in the way she brings her feet off the floor when she sits and how she refuses to look at the ceilings. Her free time is spent in the gardens or their makeshift bazaar. She's out of place on the inside, out of the trees and grass and mud and he makes note that she's never once called this place 'home'.

She realizes the comparison too, he thinks. Sometimes she tears herself away from the garden to plant herself in the library and talk with him. He begins to save the seat closest to the window for her. She takes the kindness with a soft smile and the occasional swiped sweet bun.

oOo

She stares at the book in her hand with such intensity he wants to laugh.

"Has the naughty thing bitten you?" he inquires.

The girl jumps and her hold on the book is shaken enough that the thing slips from her fingers with a thud that echoes against the stone walls. "Mythal," she breathes, and he has to catch himself from questioning the word again. "Sorry, I was just, um, confused at this one part," she stammers, eyes flickering between him and the wall so quickly that even the most oblivious individual can tell she's hiding something.

He puts the pieces together without much trouble, but the outcome is so unbelievable that for a moment he second guesses himself. "Can you not read?" he asks.

Her eyes go both wild and ferocious. "Of course I can!" she snaps, and immediately the fire is gone, replaced by regret and surprise and a tiny bit of fear. "I mean, yes, I, I can read." She fumbles over her words, trying to find something to fix the outburst.

For a moment he wants to make a joke. The mighty Inquisitor, Herald of Andraste, unable to read. But there's something in the way her shoulders are curled in that makes him pause. "Well, I suppose I must be the one to fix this," he announces instead. "It might kill one of those fanatics out there if they knew their precious Herald couldn't read their letters of utmost devotion."

"I can read," she repeats, softer this time. And she can, he finds out shortly into their lessons. It's not the letters she has problem with but the words. "Dalish don't keep tomes of research like this," she explains in a sheepish voice.

She offers to teach him Elvish in return, and though he originally balks at the idea (_slave language, he immediately thinks even though he'd never heard the elves in Tevinter speak it, and it brings to mind images of unwashed clothes and grubby hands_) he eventually allows her to play teacher. It's well worth it in the end, he decides after managing to properly respond to a flustered Solas. The moment is made even better when he glances over to see her face beaming with unchecked pride.

oOo

They're still wary of him. Still eye him suspiciously as he enters the room. But now they have even more reason to sneer.

He's been spending more time with her. Fighting and drinking and pouring over books in the library. It's the most fun he's had in years, and although he'll never admit he's grateful for the girl's presence. She's the epitome of savage (_chewing on roots for the taste, forgetting shoes because they make her toes feel confined, jumping over railings and off of roofs_) and yet she exhibits a kind of grace in her movements that he hasn't seen even in the most classiest of Tevinter companies. It's odd, his fascination with a girl who in all regards should be as far from him as possible.

The Chantry mothers corner him, remind him that his hovering about the Herald makes the masses wary. He scoffs, assures them he has no intentions of corrupting the girl with Tevinter culture. Though he makes a huge show of unconcern he begins to wonder if maybe his presence is doing her more harm than good. He begins to hang back, finds reasons to skip their daily talks.

She comes to him pouting one day, demanding to know why he's avoiding her. It's hard to take her seriously when she's got her cheeks puffed out in anger and the tip of her nose is vibrant pink, but he manages to keep a straight face. His reasoning is stupid, and it only sounds increasingly so when he explains it to her.

She blows air through her nose in a kind of laugh. "Did I ever tell you I was bothered?" She waits until his hesitant '_no_' to continue. "Good. Now come. I need a drinking partner." She drags him to the tavern and when they pass a group of whispering supporters she sticks her tongue out at them in a display so childish he can't help but laugh.

oOo

He finally takes a moment to look at her; really _look_ at her.

She's tiny for someone who spends all their time on the move. It must be an elf thing, he thinks, and though he knows she's sturdier than that, he's half afraid someone will grab her and snap her bones like kindling.

The girl's pretty, he also has to admit. She collects suitors with a bat of her eyes and an unguarded smile. He wonders if she knows the way the Commander looks at her; with longing eyes and a smile so sweet it could melt the heart of even the most jaded individual. How Solas' gaze lingers a little longer than necessary when she turns away. He wonders how many boys in her clan wished to one day win her hand as their own.

She's cheerful and bright and almost blindingly brilliant at times (though never so much as he is, he hastens to remind himself). But there's a heaviness about her; like she's wearing down under the grin and the girlish laugh and he can't help but notice the way her callused hands tremble slightly as they grip her daggers tighter, tighter, _tighter._

"Lene," he wants to call to her. "Being scared doesn't suit you."

But he can't. He can't admit he knows she comes to the library to escape her nightmares. How each time she sits in that throne (_and it swallows her up, a tiny body to fill a seat so large and imposing_) her knuckles go white and her eyes spark with fear and regret as she sends someone to their execution. He can't because he can't admit that he's getting that close.

It's easy to be the fast-talking man with the confidence of the gods. Superficial relationships don't require one to open themselves up and show off wounds raw and festering. He doesn't know the first thing about tending to someone else's aches and so he doesn't touch hers. She's too small for him, he doesn't want to be the one who accidentally snaps her in two.

oOo

He brings her to the tavern, meets a father he hadn't expected to see again. The anger bubbles up; frothing over in a rage that propels him to spew all the secrets he had planned to keep locked up tight.

The wound comes to light, in all its rotting glory, and she's privy to the whole thing.

She seems unperturbed by the entire event. It frightens him, the utter nonchalance she grants it, and a part of him (later, when they've had their talks and he'd had enough time to realize how close he'd allowed her) thinks she's turning it over in her head; thinking of some way she can use it to her advantage.

The fear persists for weeks, hidden underneath a façade of laughter and confidence, and it only breaks when he finds her curled into the chair in the library in the dead of night.

"I think I'm losing myself," she admits without prompting. He thinks he's supposed to ask what she means, but she beats him to the punch. "I don't remember the place we last camped. It was somewhere south. Markham? I don't-" she stumbles through the words, unable to articulate her grief. "I had a sister, she was in love with a younger boy, no, an older one? She had a saying, Ma vir uth? No, wrong."

Her hands shake, clutching at upper arms with vice-like fingers and her glossy eyes are filled with fear.

_ This is her wound_, he thinks. He sits across from her, says not a word. Waits until she's spilled everything she needs, until her eyes are raw and her fingernails have worn holes into the sleeves of her shirt. She falls asleep like that, and he takes it upon himself to carry her back up to her room. This is for him alone, he decides, and it will only make it rot faster to allow someone else to see it.

He says nothing about the episode and they go about their lives as if nothing has changed. "Ma serrannas," she tells him, so offhandedly he almost doesn't realize it's directed towards him. There's a warmth in the words (_still a shaky grasp, but he understands that one, knows the meaning if not the pronunciation_) and even as he lets it go without comment he acknowledges they can no longer dance around each other.

He's glad he brought her to that tavern with him.

oOo

There's something warmer about their exchanges. She smiles more. Begins to hang off him in an unexpected clinginess. (_Hands wrapped around his arm, chest against the back of his neck as she reads while draped over his shoulders, head on his shoulder blade while she drifts off for a five minute nap._) He allows it without comment. It's actually calming, he realizes (after the surprise of how comfortable she is with such blatant shows of affection), to have someone so at ease with his touch. In time he finds himself leaning back against her.

Varric makes a comment to them one day, with eyebrow raised in a show of amusement. She shrugs from her position draped over him, the slant of her ear brushing through his hair in a way that almost tickles.

"Dorian's comfy," she explains with a smile.

The dwarf continues to make fun of them, but he finds he doesn't really mind the jokes at his expense or the veiled warning of not letting Curly see them. The feel of her small frame against him is pretty comfy too.

oOo

She's bloody and brutalized and yet she returns to Skyhold with a grin so bright it dazzles. He hangs back, watches the followers greet her with cries and shouts and praise, watches as she ascends the steps to her advisors, watches as Cullen kisses her before the entirety of Skyhold.

He keeps his distance until the party is half over and the masses have forgotten about the ragtag group of fighters to go off to dance and drink amongst themselves. He sits next to her at a table far in the corner and allows her to lean her head on his shoulder without commenting on how the action is wrinkling his shirt.

"Well, it's good to know I managed to teach you something," he begins. "You waited until I was in prime catching distance to fall over like a log."

She laughs. "Well you spent most of the battle letting spirits fight it for you. I had to make you feel like you'd done something important."

It's his turn to laugh and he does it so loudly that people from a few tables away glance over in concern. "I think you're forgetting you're talking to the most powerful member of this Inquisition," he retorts. "I confess I may even be sad to leave it."

The girl chuckles softly, the mirth subdued with his remark. She doesn't ask but the unspoken question hangs in the air. "I think I might stay for a while though," he finally breaks the silence. "I must say, Tevinter is wonderful, but it lacks a certain appeal at the moment."

She shifts slightly and he doesn't have to look to know the expression she's making. "That so?" she ventures, and while he doesn't answer he feels the way she grins into his shoulder.

They pass the rest of the night with stupid jokes and tales of one-upmanship. There's a hollow feeling when the party disbands and she's whisked away by the Commander, and part of him thinks maybe it's time for him to leave after all. The feeling dances away the next morning when he enters the library to see her seated in her usual chair, chin propped up in her palm.

"You're late," she teases.

And he accepts the offered tea with a laugh.


End file.
